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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Food Preservation
  • Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:54:24 -0700 (PDT)

Paul,
 
John Seymour, born and bred in the UK and in Switzerland,
studied agriculture and worked for years on farms in the UK
and in South Africa. After living on a boat for years, he and
his wife decided to settle down after the birth of their first
child. She did pottery and he was a self-employed writer.
In their spare time they decided to practice self-sufficiency,
making almost everything needed for live by themselves.
 
He published his experience in self-sufficiency in two
books:
 
- The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency (1976)
- The Self-Sufficiency Gardener (1978)
 
Both published by Dorling Kindersley Ltd., London.
The first was also published by Faber & Faber, London.
I only have the German translations and don’t know
the ISBN of the original English texts.
 
Both have broadly the same contents, the second
focuses more on gardening and farming. Apart from
that, Seymour explains how to work with metal,
wood and stone, how to make a well, build your
house, all-purpose oven, or make your own paper,
salt, sugar, paint, soap, how to repair shoes,
how to preserve food, make wine, slaughter an
animal, ... in short everything the city dweller
moving back to the country needs to know to
be self-sufficient. All of this is probably described
in other places in greater detail, but Seymour
is useful as a quick reference for self-sufficiency.
 
Dieter Brand
Portugal

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

That Seymour book sounds familiar but don't think we have it. Would you
elaborate? What's it about and how useful is it?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 6/25/2007 at 2:10 AM Dieter Brand wrote:

>Mitch,
>
> We make preserves to conserve most of our vegetables. You heat the
> vegetables before sealing them in a screw-on glass. This works fine for
> tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, etc., but can be tricky for beans for
> example.
>
> Most people around here, who are not connected to the grid, use AC/DC
> freezers. I haven’t heard about any complaints. You can use a timing
> device to switch the freezer on during the day, when the sun is on
> the solar panels, and turn it off during the night. We lost all our
>frozen
> food last year, when the grid collapsed and we won’t there to reset
the
> fuse after grid services resumed.
>
> I failed so far with sun-drying even though we have plenty of sun. I
>guess
> I’m always to busy with other things when we have the greatest heat in

> July and August. We also get a lot of humidity during the night when it
> cools down a quite a bit. When I get some time, I want to build some
> sort of sun drying device like the one described in Seymour´s book on
> self sufficient living.
>
> Dieter Brand
> Portugal
>
>"E. E. Mitchamore Jr" wrote:
> As this is the first season we've had to seriously think about
>preserving the food from our garden, we find ourselves a bit behind the
>curve and could use some help.
>
> We're using a small electric dehydrator to learn about drying & will
>build a solar dryer when we have time.
>
> Root cellars aren't viable in Central Texas, so we're considering a
>freezer. However, I don't want to increase our dependency on the grid OR
>spend a lot of money right now on solar (our electric bills are too small
>to make solar a good economic choice for other purposes).
>
> SO, I'm considering an AC/DC freezer to use with the grid now and
>off-grid stand-alone solar in the future and for disaster preparedness.
>
> Finally, the question: I'm seeking input on AC/DC freezers from anyone
>who has personal knowledge or experience. Thanks.
>
> E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz



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